The Swift Steed Inn: Winter's Bite
by Mithrilquill
Summary: Venessiel feels the sting of mortality. Book-verse Elf-MaidenOC/ManOC


Venessiel feels the sting of Mortality. (Book-verse) Elf-maidenOC/ManOC

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Winter's Bite

**_Sometime between 2900-2901 of the Third Age_**

"How is it that after all these years you look exactly the same, just as beautiful as ever?" the old Man spoke freely.

"Master Farers," Venessiel sighed. "Why is it that after all these years, you choose _this_ night to tell me that I'm beautiful? When you could've anytime before. When you could have while you were a young, strapping lad. You are very handsome yourself, I daresay, Sir." She ended with a chuckle, pouring the withered soul a glass of current wine and taking a seat beside him in the next armchair.

Farers was a white and wrinkled Man, and his hair was long, brittle and silver where he had not become bald. His eyes were a faded, watery green. They were bright and glowing and adoring the first time Venessiel had seen him, 60 years ago when he was but a boy of 16, traveling to Rivendell from a small settlement of peasant Men south of the city. He came nervously asking for a room until the morning, when he could call upon an Elfish healer for a medicine -he explained to a puzzled Venessiel and her mother and father that night, so many years ago. It seemed his father was ill and their clan had never seen an ailment of his kind, nor had any of their remedies helped in the least.

Venessiel's father, Rainion refused the boy's offering of sorry, tattered furs as payment for boarding -all his clansmen could gather that had any worth at all. The boy smiled sadly with great gratitude.

"I am too old and tired to keep up my old timid ways now, and you're so very lovely. I didn't want to let it go unsaid a second longer," he smiled a warm smile and his kind eyes settled on her pink cheeks. She laughed again at the old Man's uninhibited way of speaking. She did not know it from him. He was usually a quiet, reserved sort of fellow, coming often to Rivendell, staying a night or two at the Swift Stead, and leaving only to return a year or two later.

The two sat before a blazing fire in the common-room of the quiet, sleepy inn. Farers sipped at his wine, idly watching the orange fire pit and smiling every so often, small and to himself.

Venessiel looked to the old Man, he was nearly 80 and shrunken and weak and weathered and he would die, surely in the next years. She remembered him over the last half-century, coming to stay probably 50 times. He was a perfect gentleman, and he grew into a handsome man, graceful yet strong and with a pleasant air of kindness and gentleness. And then he began to decline, and become thin and small and his black hair turned white or fell away. But he always remained a kind sort of Man.

"I suppose then, if you have chosen honesty as the order of the day- I should tell you that you are the very best of Men I've ever met, and I should think you broke many hearts in your days. Why is it that you never married, Farers?" Venessiel implored.

The old Man remained quiet then took one last sip of his current before setting it on the end table that separated the two chairs. He took a deep breath.

"I was busy. After the death of my father from the vile fever that took him, I swore to never be without a living, never again let myself and the family that I had planned to have be without a way to pay for anything they should have needed. Such as the medicine for my father, that could not be bought with my pitiful furs. When I left Rivendell that summer, and returned to my village to watch my father perish as I could do nothing to stop it, I devised a plan. A plan to acquire wealth," he stopped himself. "Let us just leave it at the fact that it worked."

"What was your trade, Farers? I never knew, you were always so private and I wanted to show you the same respect you always showed my mother and father and I."

Farers remained quiet.

"If only you had come back to my family, we would have paid for your father's medicine, you were just a scared young lad. We would have helped you," a single, regretful tear ran down her cheek.

"Do not dwell on the past, Dove, it cannot be changed no matter how many tears we shed over it. Us, Men know that better than anyone else. Time should not be squandered on such useless things. Not when there is the present to be concerned with, and the future. There is always tomorrow to wonder about," he patted her hand. She smiled softly at him.

He suddenly laughed out loud, startling Venessiel.

"Who am I to speak of squandering time? When I spent all my years collecting riches and assets for the family I never had, when I could have been chasing after you," he sighed. He looked up to the yellow haired maiden, a spitting image of the girl he had met all his life-time ago. Not a _girl_, she was 400 years old then, already.

"If I should have, would you have had me?" he asked hopefully.

Venessiel contemplated the question for a moment.

"If you had chased after me, instead of accumulating your wealth?" a strange, rare smile stretched across her face, as if she found the question absurd but the sweetest thing she had ever heard at the same time. Farers nodded eagerly with a boyish energy.

"If you had chased me, and came to know me, and I you, and I came to love you," she bit her lip. "Well love cannot be helped, can it? I would surely have taken the person I loved. There is no question to it, for me."

Farers took a deep, relieved breath.

"It calms me to hear it," he closed his eyes.

"Do you need rest now, Master Farers?" she leaned forward and studied the solemn-faced, aged Man.

He roused suddenly, jerking his head quickly, waking. He turned heavy eyes to his glowing lady, ethereal in her yellow, soft curls.

"I should very much like to find my rest now, yes."

She stood and carried the small, withered man on her arm and guided him up the stairs to his room. She helped him through the door and watched as he slowly made his way to the bed. He sat carefully on the side and waved to his lady.

"Thank you, Dove. You will never know the peace you brought to an old, fading man."

She forced a smile at his morbid words and left him alone in the dark dormitory.

He laid back, resting his head on the downy pillow and closed his eyes. He remembered the day he had turned 35 years old. He had just acquired his first real home, a stone dwelling, a castle of sorts, the main building in the peasant village he had grown up in. He had finally accomplished his goal, to bring posterity to his clansmen and their land. He built his home, and a great hall, to worship and celebrate in. His fur trading was now self-sustainable, with the many men working below him and for him, he no longer was required to trade, himself. He could finally settle and take a wife. He thought of the lady he had visited nearly every summer, her beauty never fading, her caring ways, her delicateness and her warmth. He should like a wife like her. He should like her as his wife.

"I should have chased her," he said under his breath, to himself. "She would have taken me. She could have loved me."

He smiled as he remembered her words, _she could have loved me._

When the old Man took his leave in the morning, Venessiel never saw Farers again. She cursed mortality.

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**A/N: Let me know how you feel in a little review. This is just another one-shot in the Venessiel series. I'm currently working on the chaptered fiction that will feature Haldir, but will not be posting any of it until its completed. In the mean time, these shorts will have to do. Hopefully people like them! Let me know, why don't you!**


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